


so he grows

by bokutoma



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Protective Siblings, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 20:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19411129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: moira will always have her brother's back





	so he grows

**Author's Note:**

> happy (belated) birthday to my sweet angel cailin!!! boris is the best boy in the entire way <333

If one were to listen to Moira - and in her opinion, everyone _should_ \- they would come to the conclusion that she found everything bothersome, with one notable exception.

Her brother.

Not Fergus, of course. The great lout spouted enough nonsense for everyone in the family, and despite how she loved him, he annoyed her to no end, and he'd only gotten worse since he married that terrible bore Oriana. Boris, however, was an entirely different story.

From the start, he had never quite been what their parents wanted. Twins were supposed to be auspicious, especially when concerned with the matter of lineage, but it had taken her brother three extra hours to be born after she had, and from there, life had never gotten easier. He wasn't the heir or a daughter, politically marketable and proud, and he had never learned to navigate the scheming of court life with any ease - both Fergus's roguish charm and Moira's own flirtatious manipulation far outstripped his own meager talent. Because of this, both the teyrn and teyrna paid him shamefully little mind. 

Moira, however, knew far better, no twin of hers was anything less than exceptional.

Though he scowled far more than anyone, save, perhaps, Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir, and had the manners of a boar, she had met no man better with a blade. If pressed, she _might_ even declare him her superior.

Still, Bryce and Eleanor, terribly short-sighted as they were, didn't see the merit of him. Though Boris should, for all intents and purposes, be seen as the "spare", that responsibility had fallen squarely on her shoulders. In other circumstances, she'd be delighted; based on the order of their birth, the spot _should_ be hers. She was a woman, however, and so she knew the truth: they didn't trust her baby brother.

More fool them.

She, who most would say loved none but herself, kept him company during the worst of days, when courtiers came and went and suitors were paraded in front of them like choice livestock, so concerned with carrying on the Cousland name that no one asked how he felt about it. Woman after woman - bah! As if any would tempt him.

When she was away, though, she worried. When they had all been younger, when the Howes would visit, she would play the unwelcome tagalong to Nathaniel and Fergus, or work on perfecting the "womanly arts" with Delilah. Boris, however, gangly and awkward in a way that had seemed bone-deep, had had neither the confidence or the right" gender for either activity, and had instead been relegated to spending time with Thomas, who took after his father in all the wrong ways.

One time (in a memory she recalled solely because she could not recall ever being angrier), they had been visiting, before the prospects of her marriage had ever been the issue it became, she remembered coming back to her family quarters, pleasantly satisfied from both her childhood crush on the eldest Howe and gaining his attention by pestering him for tales of his exploits. She had been all of fifteen, and though Thomas was younger, he had hit a growth spurt early, and had stood almost as tall as Boris.

When she entered, all such happy feelings dissipated.

Based on the scene in front of her, Thomas had picked her brother to shreds; Boris's eyebrows were drawn low over a stormy gaze, and he had the youngest Howe pinned to the wall, hand bunched in his collar.

The exact details were a blur; Thomas had turned his head and welcomed her with a bloody nose, a smug grin, and a lewd remark, and Boris's fist had connected before she could even ask for a shot at him herself. Eventually, though, footsteps echoed down the hall. Though both had taken swings, her brother had been in thin ice. She had made him leave, and though the Howe brat had taunted him, he changed his tune when the threat of discovery had passed, and Boris had returned, a fine Cousland knife in hand.

"Say anything like that about my sister, talk any sort of shit, and I'll cut your prick off myself," he had muttered, voice as low and dark as thunder.

She had never been so glad to call him her brother.

In the present, though, the days were long, and though she had quickly taken - and then _overtaken_ \- Fergus's place as a notorious flirt and a stellar bedside companion, neither that nor training with Ser Gilmore (scintillating though his company might be) filled them.

No, as she knocked on the sturdy wooden door just across the hall from her own, she knew there was no place she'd rather be than by her brother's side.

He opened the door, hair tousled from either a bath or a bear attack.

"Moira," he said, voice soft in a way she rarely got to hear.

"Bo," she replied affectionately, sweeping in the room and kicking the door shut before he even had a chance to protest the nickname.

It was a remnant from days where she was sentimental out loud; they had finished their tutoring for the day (which consisted mostly of the two of them torturing the poor apprentice set to help for the day), and he had remarked on how dissimilar their names were. She had known where his thoughts were taking him. After all, she was the one named after a queen.

"Well," she had hurriedly said. "If you think about it, they're pretty close."

Even when they were little, he had had his disdainful look down to an art.

"Mo and Bo, see? We rhyme."

It had been utterly ridiculous, but they had referred to themselves as such until they had reached the age to be embarrassed by such things. Still, sometimes she brought it up just to see the look on his face, part revulsion, part wondering gratitude.

"Ugh." He rolled his eyes. "What now, Moira?"

"Can't I just miss my darling baby brother?"

"Name one time in the last five years you've talked to someone without an ulterior motive."

She laughed and flopped back onto his bed. "Were you always this much of a smartass?"

His smile was such a rare thing that she rejoiced in its appearance now, even if it was at her expense. "What, you think you're the only one with a clever tongue?"

She waggled her eyebrows. "I bet men love it when you lay that one on them." Scarlet erupted on his cheeks, and he collapsed onto the bed beside her, face down to hide his embarrassment. "I loathe you."

"Even when I tell you there's a Gray Warden due in Highever?"

The speed at which he turned over to face her would have been comical even if he hadn't somehow managed to look even more disheveled. " _What?_ "

"Soon," she promised. "You'll be somewhere where they see your worth."

She didn't mention the wetness that gathered in his eyes, but when he squeezed her hand, she squeezed back.

Moira Cousland did not break promises to people she cared about, and there was no one more important than Boris.

* * *

( _A year later, they both stood before the prone body of the Archdemon. She had been prepared to make the blow - glory for her and the extra guarantee of safety for Boris beyond the ritual - but he stopped her._

_"Let me," he said. "I'm expendable."_

_"No." She locked eyes with Zevran, halfway across the roof. "You have a man you love, and a child, even if you might never see him."_

_For the first time in their lives, he seemed to accept the truth she knew all along: Boris Cousland mattered, perhaps more than most._

_"Then let me prove my worth," he said, eyes hard._

_This time, she stepped aside._

_When he still stood tall after the Archdemon breathed its last, she laughed._

_Yes, the world was finally hearing what Moira had been saying all along._

_The best thing in her life, the best thing in Thedas, was her brother.)_


End file.
